


Understanding

by wneleh



Series: SGU Missing Scenes and Epilogues [11]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Episode s02e01 Intervention, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wneleh/pseuds/wneleh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rush learns something from Chloe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Understanding

It takes Nick forever to fall asleep; it feels like hours later, but too soon, when the door alert sounds.

It's Chloe, and for a moment he's back in Berkeley, and some undergraduate, or first year grad student, has ignored RateMyProfessors and turned up for one of his two weekly office hours instead of seeing one of his TAs (who were always excellent, a personal point of pride). 

Chloe is sporting the look, and it's no more attractive on her than it's ever been on anyone else, which is surprising because she's a lovely girl. Nor more comprehensible. 

At first he'd thought the look meant, sir, I'll do anything for a passing grade. Anything. And it had repulsed him, of course. Then, a young woman - Anabel from Alabama, ah, the poor, frustrated basket case - had resolutely set out to seduce him, and he'd finally learned what *that* look actually was. 

"Can I help you?" he asks Chloe, making himself smile.

"I have something to show you," she says, and then his heart stops as she turns sideways right there in the corridor and pulls down her pants…

"Miss Armstrong!" he hears himself squeak.

"Look, please, just look," she says, pointing to a somewhat fresh-looking wound on her thigh.

"Yes, well…" He has absolutely no idea what she wants from him.

"This is from yesterday. I was bleeding to death. Ask Eli. Then - then all of a sudden I was fine. Normal. Ask Eli… just ask him. Matt doesn't know how bad off I was, but Eli does."

"When did the bleeding stop?"

"It was more than just the bleeding stopping. I was barely conscious, then I was almost normal."

"When did you start to feel better?"

"Right when that radiation spike happened, when Matt and Ron were outside." She's still wearing that expression, the one he doesn't understand.

"Fascinating," is the best he can come up with.

"So, could the radiation have done something? Or… was it them…" 

Rush doesn't have to ask who she means. "You think they may have changed you?"

"I don't know." The look has disappeared; now she looks like she might cry. But that passes in an instant (thank God!). 

"What do you want from me?" he asks.

"To help me understand! It - it doesn't really matter if it is from them, from something they did to me, because being alive is better than being dead, alright? But I want to understand."

Nick nods, and hopes Chloe can't see that she's just explained - well, nothing of consequence really, just something he never figured out in a dozen years of teaching, that's all. 

Understanding. That's what they'd wanted from him. Who'd have thought?

"I don't have any answers for you," he says, "but I'll help you work the problem, alright?"

* * * THE END * * *


End file.
